Rory McIlroy accuses Bryson DeChambeau of holding Open ‘hostage’ after penalty

Masters champion Rory McIlroy delivered an extraordinary rebuke to a “performative” Bryson DeChambeau and accused the American of holding the tournament “hostage” over his rules controversy at The Open.

The Northern Irishman’s dislike of the two-time US Open winner is well known and he refused to speak to him when they played together during the final round of his 2025 win at Augusta which brought him the career grand slam.

But he said it out loud when asked for his thoughts on how the American had behaved late into the night on Friday, which delayed the publication of the third-round tee-times until around 11pm and prompted criticism from a number of players, with England’s Marco Penge calling it “a joke”.

“Late night for everyone,” said McIlroy.

“I won’t pretend to be up here and defend Bryson. I’m not particularly fond of him. I think a lot of it’s performative. I think a lot of it’s for attention.

“To hold the tournament hostage like that, and to have all of us, players, volunteers, everyone waiting on him to depart, I didn’t feel like it was a great look.”

DeChambeau objected to a two-stroke penalty imposed after a round of 66 for improving the area of his backswing by standing on a large tuft of high grass at Royal Birkdale.

He requested to be driven out to the scene of the incident on the fifth hole where he spent a lengthy period remonstrating with officials before returning to the scoring compound for further discussions.

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The American then heading to the practice ground – with murmurings about him possibly pulling out of the tournament – to hit balls for almost an hour until he left at 10.30pm.

There has been plenty of debate about the